This invention is directed to a continuous wave laser and in particular to a Brillouin optical fiber ring laser.
Optical fibers are known to provide a particularly suitable medium for the study of stimulated scattering processes. The strong transverse confinement of the optical fields by the fiber and the long interaction lengths that are possible significantly reduce the pump-power levels required to observe nonlinear processes. Stimulated Brillouin scattering (SBS) has been observed in glass fibers using a xenon-laser pump at 5355 A with power levels less than 1W in 600 nsec pulses. These observations have been reported in the publication by E. P. Ippen and R. H. Stolen, Applied Physics Letters 21, 539 (1972).